What happens to unvested RSUs if you quit?

Short answer: unvested RSUs are typically forfeited when you quit. The company plan governs. Vested RSUs you generally keep, subject to settlement, trading windows, and tax. This page is not legal advice, tax advice, or financial advice.

What typically forfeits

Restricted stock units are a promise. Shares, or a cash equivalent, show up on a vest date, not on the grant date. Until that vest date, the units are unvested. Quit before they vest and the unvested remainder is usually cancelled.

That cancellation is the default at most companies. It covers units still inside a cliff. It covers the unpaid tail of a four-year schedule. It covers refreshers that have not started, and refreshers that have started but have not finished. A package with three overlapping grants has three tails. Each tail is its own leftover.

Timing is the whole difference. Leave six days before a cliff and the first-year block is typically still unvested. Leave six days after and that block is vested, subject to settlement and tax. Monthly vesting does not save a mid-cycle slice if the plan says the unit vests on a date you are no longer there.

Some plans write exceptions. Retirement provisions, death, disability, or a one-off acceleration can keep units that would otherwise cancel. A sign-on grant can also claw back value even after a vest, if you leave inside a stated window. None of this is standard across companies. The plan, the grant agreement, and any later amendment control.

Vested versus unvested

The split is binary on the leave date the plan uses. Units that already vested are usually yours. Units that have not vested are usually not.

Public-company RSUs usually settle at vest, with tax withheld then. After settlement, selling is a trading-window problem and a tax problem. It is not a forfeiture problem. Private-company RSUs can vest on a schedule and still sit behind a settlement or liquidity condition. Vested on paper is not cash. A $100,000 line on a cap table is not $100,000 in a bank account.

If 8,000 unvested units sit at a $50 mark, that is $400,000 of paper. Leave before the cliff and that whole unvested remainder is typically gone. The vested slice you already keep sits outside that number. People call the forfeited unvested value the walk-away cost. It is ordinary English for what you give up, not a claim that paper is liquid.

Cliffs, refreshers, and dates

A one-year cliff is the common first gate. Nothing vests until that date. Miss it by a week and the first-year block is still unvested. Hit it and a large slice usually converts at once, then a monthly or quarterly tail continues.

Refreshers stack. A new grant does not erase the old tail. It adds another schedule, often with its own cliff. The leave date that is cheap on one grant can be expensive on another. Two Mondays apart can be two different remainders.

Read the grant. Read the plan. If those two disagree, the documents win, not a spreadsheet and not this page.

If you want a private figure for the unvested remainder on a leave date, Worth Leaving is a private calculator. For the industry definition of the forfeited remainder, see What is walk-away cost?. For a private way to run the math, see How to calculate walk-away cost without anyone knowing.

FAQ

Do unvested RSUs still vest after I quit? Typically no. Unvested units are usually forfeited. The company plan governs.

Do I keep vested RSUs? Usually yes, subject to settlement rules, trading windows, and tax. Vested units you can keep are not part of the unvested remainder.

What happens if I leave just before a cliff? The cliff block is typically still unvested, so it is usually cancelled. A few days after the cliff, that block is typically vested, then settlement and tax apply. The plan's vest date is the line.